NSA won't say whether it spies on Congress

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Washington (CNN) - Congress is just like everyone else. That's the message the National Security Agency has for Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The independent senator from Vermont sent a letter to the agency Friday, asking whether it has or is "spying" on members of Congress and other elected American officials.

The NSA provided a preliminary response Saturday that said Congress has "the same privacy protections as all U.S. persons."

"NSA's authorities to collect signals intelligence data include procedures that protect the privacy of U.S. persons. Such protections are built into and cut across the entire process. Members of Congress have the same privacy protections as all U.S. persons," said the agency in a statement obtained by CNN.

The response goes on to promise the agency will continue to work with Congress on the issues - without ever addressing the senator's real question.

Sanders defines "spying" in his letter as "gathering metadata on calls made from official or personal phones, content from websites visited or e-mails sent, or collecting any other data from a third party not made available to the general public in the regular course of business."

The NSA would say nothing more, except that it is further reviewing the letter.

"We will continue to work to ensure that all Members of Congress, including Sen. Sanders, have information about NSA's mission, authorities, and programs to fully inform the discharge of their duties," read the statement.

Attorney General Eric Holder similarly deflected answering the same question at a congressional hearing last summer, telling Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Illinois, that the NSA had no "intent" to spy on Congress, but the issue was better discussed in private.

The intelligence community has faced heated criticism from the right and left in 2013 after Edward Snowden's leaks, and the intensity has continued fiercely in 2014.

On Thursday, the New York Times and the Guardian published scathing editorials that slammed the "violations" Snowden's leaks revealed and advocated a presidential pardon for him.

Among those charges was the notion that James Clapper Jr., the director of National Intelligence, lied to Congress while testifying last March that the NSA was not collecting data on millions of Americans.

National Intelligence was quick to push back, with a letter to the editor from by general counsel Robert Litt, published in the New York Times on Saturday.

"As a witness to the relevant events and a participant in them, I know that allegation is not true," writes Litt, explaining that Clapper misunderstood the question, but couldn't publicly correct his mistake "because the program involved was classified."

"This incident shows the difficulty of discussing classified information in an unclassified setting and the danger of inferring a person's state of mind from extemporaneous answers given under pressure."

Litt said that Clapper was "surprised and distressed" when he was informed by staff that he gave a misleading answer after the testimony.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/04/nsa-wont-say-whethe...

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Permalink Reply by Not mainstreamer on January 6, 2014 at 8:19am

James Clapper

In 2003, Clapper, then head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, attempted to explain the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq by asserting that the weapons materials were "unquestionably" shipped out of Iraq to Syria and other countries just before the American invasion, a "personal assessment" which Clapper's own agency head at the time, David Burpee, "could not provide further evidence to support."[10]

Sure

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Permalink Reply by apeman2502 on January 6, 2014 at 7:19pm

A convoy of CIA origin was apprehended by U.S. military intelligence while trying to smuggle truck loads of illegal chemical and biological weapons into Iraq just before the Iraq invasion by the U.S.. An offshore U.S. aircraft carrier was reported to have lit up this convoy attempting to frame Iraq for possessing these weapons. Credit the good guys for nipping this one in the bud. Our U.S. elected government is contaminated to the core by rats loyal to a hostile invading entity utilizing the financial system, HAARP, and other covert means to bring down the U.S.. The minions of queen lizard are not your friends. Call your congresspersons to task and root out the suckers of The Council on Foreign Relations and The City of London. They are not your friend. This is not a game if you are its victim. Fukushima is ruining your day. Skulls and helmet nuts suck totally. We all screw up from time to time. Time to change.

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Permalink Reply by Bruce David on January 6, 2014 at 8:41am

Of course they do, just like J Edgar Hoover did. It's always wise to have dirt on friends and enemies.

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Permalink Reply by Central Scrutinizer on January 6, 2014 at 8:46am

aye, it helped nail John Roberts to floppity his verybarrycare vote in the SC in '12

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Permalink Reply by Central Scrutinizer on January 6, 2014 at 9:21am

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Permalink Reply by apeman2502 on January 6, 2014 at 7:10pm

We could TORTURE them to find the extent of their treason. No soap operas and change the curtains in their offices. That should get them oh so upset, they would cave and sell their mothers into slave labor.

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Permalink Reply by Central Scrutinizer on January 6, 2014 at 7:28pm

lol ;)

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Permalink Reply by Not mainstreamer on January 7, 2014 at 12:11am

Stewart Abercrombie Baker

Another (Scottish) Khazarian leader (equal to Rumsfelt, Cheney and Gen Alexander)

On July 13, 2005, Baker was appointed by President George W. Bush to be Assistant Secretary (acting as Under Secretary-equivalent) for Policy for the United States Department of Homeland Security. His nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on October 7, 2005.[1][10]

Video (16:35- ) (study his eyes)